Welcome to part 2 on Unethical Self-Promoters which is inspired by a recent tweet by Pepper Bismol (@Gurl_getreal) who accurately described the real and dire consequences of a ‘few bad apples’:
‘The current usage of a ‘few bad apples’ bothers me. A few bad apples spoil the barrel. If you put a rotting apple in with three dozen good one, every adjacent apple will be rotting withing days.
‘A few bad apples’ does NOT mean ‘we have a good barrel but, oh well, sometime bad things happen’. ‘A few bad apples’ means ‘Our entire organism is rotting from the inside out, triggered by the actions of a few and perpetuated by the natural process of the whole.’
When you say ‘we had a few bad apples’ you next words had BETTER be ‘we excised them quickly and permanently, and checked the remaining one to make sure they’re still good.’
Unethical self-promoters are bad apples.
These bad apples spoil and ruin it for everyone else, especially when they get in positions of power and authority i.e. CEOs and other key C-suite roles, government ministers, politicians, lobbyists, political donors, wellness gurus, religious leaders, journalists and news anchors peddling propaganda as news, social media and TV celebrities, etc. But they are everywhere and exist in every profession, including sales.
Rusted-on unethical self-promoters are most likely to have psychopathic and/or narcissistic tendencies.
Population studies show about 1 percent of the general population meets the clinical criteria for psychopathy; however, the prevalence of psychopaths is higher in the business world than in the general population with figures of around 3–4% being cited for more senior positions in business.
When it comes to narcissistic tendencies, narcissistic personality disorder is rare. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders between 0.5 and 1 percent of the general population with upwards of 75% people with NPD being men.
Their selfish, self-centred, corrupt decisions and actions infest the many who follow them or get caught up in their scams and the consequences are often always dire.
Just think Enron and Arthur Anderson Consulting, or the 2008 GFC lead by Lehman Brothers, or the diesel car scandal by Volkswagen, or celebrities like Lance Armstrong and Harvey Weinstein, in Australia the HIH Insurance collapse, or Alan Bond and Christopher Skaife, and more recently the Australian Banking Royal Commission and Aged Care & Disabilities Commissions, amongst others. The list goes on.
So how do these dubious people get away with this?
Well, besides being master manipulators and slick communicators in most cases, other people let them get away with their actions. Many simply believe the lies, spin and too-good-to-be-true promises and don’t do or don’t know how to do their due diligence and then get scammed. Unethical Self-Promoters prey on the gullible and the vulnerable mostly.
Unethical self-promoters also rely on the fear-to-take-action or play-it-safe mindset in others. There are those who do know better but are simply too afraid to call out these charlatans because of what might happen to them personally, professionally, and financially. Being a whistleblower requires courage which many don’t exercise, so instead they stay quiet or quietly leave.
Others are reverentially compliant using their respect for status, hierarchy, leadership & seniority as an excuse not to speak up and therefore accept this corruption as business as usual; while others are simply amoral and opportunistic seeing a way to make some quick easy money justifying their decisions by saying that the boss has sanctioned it so it must be OK.
Companies, organisations, political parties, governments, communities, and nations with weak ethics cultures and no integrity or moral framework are the very organisations, parties, governments and communities that allow these bad apples to flourish and reek their havoc on us – their rot leaks into all aspects of our lives and before we know it, corruption becomes our standard operating procedure with once good people doing bad things because ‘everyone does it’.
The good news
The good news is that these unethical self-promoters and the deceit and corruption they spread are not appreciated, tolerated, or supported by the vast majority of people. I recently completed the Australia Talks online survey which was built off the back of an initial survey asking over 60,000 Australians 600 questions about all sorts of things including corruption, the wealth gap, gender equality, trust, etc. Here are the survey findings relevant to our topic:
- Lying Politicians: 94% of Australians think lying politicians should resign. This is one thing all voting groups can agree on, with high levels of support across parties.
- Federal Corruption Watchdog: nearly 9 in 10 people say Australia needs a federal corruption watchdog. There are strong majorities among all voters in favour of a corruption commission to watch over federal politics.
- Misinformation: 94% of Australians consider misinformation a problem for Australia. Misinformation is the number one issue selected by Australians as a problem for the country, beating other major issues such as climate change and having enough money for retirement.
- Who to trust: 79% of Australians think it’s harder to know who to trust these days. Voters of all stripes tend to think it’s becoming more challenging to decide which sources of information are trustworthy.
Sadly, where there is corruption you will always find bad apples – unethical self-promoters – at the helm. However, recognising unethical self-promoters and acknowledging, even complaining about, their dreadful impact on our relationships, businesses, governments and society isn’t enough.
What can we do?
As Lily Tomlin said “I always wondered why somebody doesn’t do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.” So:
- Ask a lot more questions about why and how decisions are being made – especially when they are being made on our behalf without any consultation
- Look for the evidence and check if people are saying and doing things for fact or effect
- Take time to think about and make informed decisions
- Make sure we are not pressured into making hasty decisions, especially without the facts
- Trust our gut instinct and walk away if the person and/or what they are asking us to do feels wrong
- Run regular ethics and civics classes in schools, universities, businesses, organisations, and communities to help raise our collective awareness about good governance, ethical business and community practices and standards, especially as things shift and change like with the emergence of AI
- Check what behaviours and actions our business cultures and practices really encourage
- Improve our recruitment standards and reset performance to include how we treat people and deliver on good governance
- Reset the paradigm about what good leadership really looks like i.e. Servant leadership
- Speak up and call out the unethical, immoral, and illegal behaviour and conduct of these bad apples – directly, if safe to do so or go to the relevant authority or a trusted person to raise your concerns then follow up and make sure action is taken – As the famous quote atributed to Edmund Burkesays: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
- Put in place a federal integrity commission that does hold our politicians and public servants to account – why not put in place an integrity commission inside our own organisations as well
- And use the 19 behavioural characteristics checklist of unethical self-promoters to help us to warn others about them and identify them before they get us
We need to educate our children, teenagers and families, our teams, clients and suppliers, and the public at large so they can distinguish between ethical and unethical behaviours and conduct so they can be more discerning and make wiser decisions about who to work for, buy from, sell to, vote for, listen to, and so on.
We all need to step up and keep ourselves informed about what is happening in the world around us.
We all need to remove the bad apples and watch who we let near our minds, our wallets, and our votes.
Remember everybody lives by selling something.
Related topics
Unethical self-promoters walk amongst us – be very aware
Selling in times of social mistrust
A year ago
Human-centred sales operations – Being Businessworthy
Five years ago
Women in Sales & Sales Leadership Research
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